Scaredy Cat!/SOLD

It’s the time of year for grinning pumpkins, rubber spiders, and small monsters roaming the streets. For candy corn, caramel apples, and dentist’s nightmares. Yes, it’s Halloween time.

Only as an adult (thanks to Martha Stewart) have I come around to enjoying Halloween. As a child, Halloween was just fraught with… “issues.” I’d select a costume-in-a-box at Woolworth’s (one year mine was the same as the one Caroline Kennedy picked) or come up with an idea using what was in my closet — and then on Halloween night, on the way out the door, clutching my plastic pumpkin and dressed as a cowgirl, or a witch, or whatever, my mother would insist I put on a coat. From an adult point of view, that’s a perfectly reasonable request on a cold night. From the child’s point of view, it kills the entire reason for stepping out the door in the first place. No one is going to know I’m a witch or a cowgirl if I’m wearing a ski jacket. Then I’m just a girl in a ski jacket knocking on the door asking for candy. One year, my dad attempted to devise a last-minute costume that would accommodate a ski jacket underneath — and as I went door to door in the middle of a stack of inner tubes…. every asked if I was supposed to be the Michelin Man, and I had no answer, because I wasn’t anything. Can you tell that the experience haunts me still? *shudder* Rest assured that with global climate change, I’m now able to sit out on my front step in shirt sleeves almost every Halloween, greeting all the little cowgirls, witches, princesses, storm troopers and super heroes — not a one of them wearing a jacket — who stop by for candy.

In honor of this festive black and orange season — I’ve posted a 1930s composition candy box Halloween cat in my Fabled Attic Etsy shop. This charming little scaredy cat shows his age, I’m afraid, but is no less adorable. The web experts on these matters (shout out to Mark B. Ledenbach) will warn you against the plethora of faux product in the hot Halloween collectibles market, but I assure you that this little fellow has come straight to me from my dad’s collection of childhood treasures and is 100% authentic vintage, no retouching. I’ve been given an estimate of $75-95 (would have been much more if it were in better condition) — but I’m selling it for less.

You know what attics are like. Boxes of goodies. Mysteries. Treasure. Just let me finish reading this letter I found from my grade school boyfriend and then I'll show you some of the amazing stuff up here. Victorian stuff handed down from my great-great-aunt. Early 20th-century things my grandmother tucked away in drawers and boxes. Mid-century stuff my parents have held onto despite our peripatetic life. Not to mention mementos of my youth.

Oh, and the cool thing is that you can take it home with you if you want to. And you know you want to. Click here to visit my Etsy store, the Fabled Attic.

The blog here will let me unpack the boxes in my head, tell the stories of the stuff and share bits and bobs from around the web and around the world. Have a gander. Pour yourself a cup of coffee. Let's talk.